Sunday, 11 December 2016

From The Obvious To The Fantastic

Consider these propositions:

our history is known to us;
without it, we would not be who or what we are;
that history includes many generations brought up to revere the Virgin Mary;
it also includes controversy as to the validity or otherwise of Marian devotion;
Time Patrol agents worked hard behind the scenes to ensure that every part of this history occurred on schedule.

The first four propositions may seem obvious although they are worth reflecting on. The fifth proposition is fantastic although we take it for granted when reading a science fiction series.

Many processes occur without conscious design or intervention although we sometimes imagine otherwise in works of fiction. Rupert Bear stories had Imps of Spring, Elves of Autumn and a Clerk of the Weather. When a character in a Swamp Thing story by Alan Moore complained that the hereafter was inefficient, a voluntary worker advised him to take it up with the guys in the Fate and Destiny Department!

3 comments:

I STILL come across anti-Catholics who falsely denounce Catholic and Orthodox devotion to the BVM as idolatry. And too many obstinately refuse to listen to Catholic/Orthodox explanations of why veneration of the saints is NOT idolatry.

Commenting on your last sentence: a bureaucracy in heaven? An amusing thought, but I hardly think a heavenly civil service will be needed! I remember how Robert Heinlein had Michael Valentine Smith joining the heavenly bureaucracy at the end of STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND.

A bit more plausibly, we see bureaucracies in Hell. E.g., Uncle Screwtape is a medium low ranking (not medium high ranking!) official of Satan's civil service in THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS. And the HEROES IN HELL books shows us Satan as a harassed bureaucrat constantly being outwitted by Julius and Augustus Caesar.